There are many public figures who have met, dated, and married their colleagues. One that comes to mind is Jimmy Kimmel and his wife (head writer for his show). I think as long as it doesn't affect hiring/promoting/professional decisions it's a different situation. This is also assuming, of course, that there is no form of harassment going on.

Well it definitely has an affect, the only difference is everybody is either ok with it or indifferent to it. If all of a sudden Jimmy's wife starts being an asshole and gets fired then what? You don't think it would be handled differently if the head writer wasn't his wife? Just like this Facebook message thing. If she had been receptive to it, everybody is cool. But since she wasn't all of a sudden we've got the pitchforks out. I'm not saying it isn't wrong per se, but it's a far cry from some sort of clear-cut breech of ethics when whether it's ok or not depends on somebody's reception to it, and we sit here and happily condone marriages in the workplace and pretend they don't have an effect.

I mean there's also a couple other things that differentiates McClure's situation. He's also married. He seems to have accelerated the harassment immediately. Obviously I don't know the details, but it doesn't seem like he was just asking her out on a date. And if he did then clearly she wasn't receptive and he should have stopped. I think it's pretty easy to see that there's a clear violation on McClure's side.

Sure I don't disagree. At the same time, I can see (and I'm sure it's happened) that if he had sent just one message, and had not been married, we may see a similar reaction. My larger point isn't that he didn't do anything wrong, but that these situations are common, we usually only hear about it when something bad happens, and the line between what is acceptable or not is highly variable.

mcclure was married and she knew it when he did this.

Its not very hard to make your intentions clear outright. Like other siblings have pointed out, it was the way that he propositioned her that was creepy and unprofessional. He appears to be leveraging the financial power he has to get the lady to go out with him, whether he realized that or not. (Strictly personally, my opinion is that he was fully aware of what he did. He seems like a very smart and determined person and its hard to see him not realizing this).

A better way would have been to make it explicit. i.e. "Hey X, now that we are done with business, I was wondering if you would like to meet over coffee sometime later. This will certainly not affect our professional relationship either way, but I think you're an interesting person and would like to know you better."

Some relationships though are just really dicey, like the one above. Its like having a relationship with your direct manager, since the manager is evaluating you professionally, and that's why its generally considered a bad idea.

As the OP pointed out, one of the big differences is that Bill Gates never said "go out with me or I'll fire you", whereas McClure clearly indicated he was choosing between hiring and hitting on.

Who knows exactly what it was like for Bill ans Melinda. It isn't difficult to pick up on social cues of someone illustrating a mutual interest in you before you outwardly hit on them. It's also not difficult to respectfully ask them if they would like to get a drink, in a personal context. There's no evidence McClure did either.

It is most certainly not fine.

Yeah, it's not fine.

I meant it in a different way (and was being somewhat sarcastic): that in a lot of cases, office flirting (even among equal peers) can seem OK if the woman likes the guy, and creepy if they don't (e.g. he is awkward, nerdy, out of shape, etc). In essence, a comment on how "jocks" get away with more of that kind of stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxuUkYiaUc8